It is known to use a concrete pumping truck and pipe or a boom truck to place concrete at a targeted site. The boom truck incorporates boom and pipe apparatus to pump flowable concrete mixture to a remote location, which can be at a greater distance from the pumping truck or at a different elevation, such as an upper floor or a basement of a building. It is difficult to use conventional boom trucks between floors of buildings because there may not be enough clearance between the floor and the overhead structures to reach the entire floor with the articulated boom. Furthermore, the boom of the concrete pumping truck may also not be sufficiently long to reach most remote portions of the floor on which the concrete is being deposited, which would require the use of additional pipes or hoses to carry and place the concrete at those remote locations. Similar limitations apply to large generally planar structures, such as the surface of a bridge, for which a concrete pour is needed.
In areas where boom trucks cannot reach or where a concrete pumping truck is available while a boom truck is not, a movable pipe or multiple sections of pipe or hose may be connected to the concrete pump and extended into the structure in order to reach the remote portions of the structure. Although such systems are capable of reaching the remote areas from the concrete pumps, the pipes and hoses filled with concrete mixture are difficult to manipulate in order to properly place the concrete at the remote portions due to the substantial weight of the filled pipes and/or hoses. Mobile devices are known in the art for supporting the concrete filled pipes and hoses to assist in the positioning and movement of the pipes and hoses to allow an efficient placement for the concrete mixture throughout the floor.
One known mobile device for manipulating the concrete filled pipes or hoses can be found in U.S. Pat. No. 6,588,976 issued to Philip Quenzi, et al. on Jul. 8, 2008, in which the concrete pipes or hoses are carried on top of mobile devices to manipulate the placement of concrete into the remote corners of the building floor. The concrete hoses are depicted as being carried on top of the mobile devices; however, at FIG. 66, the Quenzi patent shows the use of flexible concrete hoses having joints that are protected by a pan, which is commonly known in the industry, as noted below. The concrete pipe holding device is pivoted to the chassis to permit the movement of the wheeled apparatus across the sub grade surface of the floor on which the concrete mixture is to be deposited. The four-wheeled apparatus is steerable by turning pairs of wheels.
An alternative mobile apparatus is depicted in U.S. Pat. No. 8,312,957, granted on Nov. 20, 2012, to Daniel R. Stoltzfus, in which the flexible concrete hose is carried beneath the mobile devices for placement into the remote places of a building floor or other generally planar structures requiring a concrete pour. In the use of mobile apparatus for moving and placing concrete hoses, such as disclosed in the Stoltzfus patent, the length of concrete hose needed to span the distance from the concrete pump to the first mobile device will likely require the use of multiple fixed length concrete hoses. These concrete hoses are clamped together at joints secured typically by overcenter clamps.
Operators utilizing such mobile devices for moving concrete hoses typically place underneath each joint a flat pan, such as depicted in FIG. 66 of the aforementioned Quenzi patent, so that the joint can move over the top of wire reinforcing or other structure to be incorporated into the concrete pour. Such flat pans can tip with the movement of the concrete hose laterally across the surface to receive the concrete pour and become engaged with the underlying reinforcing wire or rods, causing the pans to flip over and expose the overcenter clamp at the joint between the concrete hoses to subsequent engagement with the underlying structure. The unwanted engagement between the overcenter clamp and underlying reinforcement structure can result in the overcenter clamp opening and, thus, disconnecting the two concrete hoses.
Coupling joints for hoses are known in the art, as is represented in U.S. Pat. No. 4,522,435, granted to William P. Miller, et al., on Jun. 11, 1985, in which a crimped seal is utilized. An overcenter clamping mechanism for the joint between concrete hoses is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,913,041, granted on Jul. 5, 2005, to Gary D. Lehnhardt, et al. An overcenter clamp is also disclosed on the apparatus for manually moving concrete hoses, as is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,838,465, granted to Lynn Metzger on Jun. 13, 1989.
It would be desirable to provide an apparatus that would have improved reliability in protecting overcenter clamps at joints between fixed length concrete hoses from exposure to underlying reinforcement structure while concrete is being pumped through the concrete hoses to remote mobile devices utilized to effect a desired placement of the concrete. It would further be desirable to provide an apparatus for protecting concrete hose joints that would move with the concrete hoses without exposing the clamping mechanism to engagement with underlying reinforcement structure.